Since the middle of last century, the dominant paradigm of international communication studies has undergone a transformation from development communication studies, cultural imperialism to globalization criticism; The school of communication criticism has experienced the process of rise, development, frustration and re-growth. As far as international communication practice is concerned, there have been two major international communication reform movements: the new world information and communication order (1970s-1980s) and the World Summit on the Information Society (265438+early 20th century). If you want to choose a person who has witnessed these activities in an all-round way from communication scholars, then Finnish scholar Kaarle Nordenstreng is undoubtedly the most suitable candidate. Norton stearns has been active in the field of international communication for more than 40 years since he first attended the International Communication Conference in 1963.

Almost all communication criticism is characterized by the close combination of theory and practice. This feature is particularly evident in Norton stearns. Norton stearns, as a communication critic and president of the International Journalists Association at that time, personally participated in and led the new world information and communication order movement in 1970s and 1980s. After the failure of the New Order Movement, he continued to organize round-table talks in mcbride. In the 1990s, these talks united the ranks of global civil society and accumulated strength for civil society organizations to participate in the later communication reform activities. During the two World Summits on the Information Society held in the early 20th century, civil society organizations became important participants. Norton stearns himself participated in these two conferences as a representative of academic circles.

Norton Stern's international activities are a natural extension of his domestic activities in Finland. /kloc-became the youngest journalist in Finland at the age of 0/5 and the youngest professor in Finland at the age of 30. He worked as a journalist, editor and director of the planning department while working for the Finnish Broadcasting Corporation. After becoming a professor at Tampere University, he continued to participate in the formulation of Finnish media policy.

Norton Stern wrote more than 30 books and more than 300 articles, which recorded his theoretical and practical exploration in detail. Television traffic-one-way street? "(1973) National Sovereignty and International Communication (1979) is a theoretical work to build a new world information communication order. The Declaration on Mass Media of UNESCO (1984) and Memories of the Past (1986) are his works summarizing experiences and lessons. After the failure of the New Order Movement and the drastic changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, Beyond National Sovereignty (1993) and Global Media Debate (1993) reflected his reflection on the past and his prospect for the future.

Academic, industrial and even political circles have different opinions about Norton stearns's activities. In Finland or northern Europe, Norton Stern is not only called a "red scholar" because of his academic orientation, but also called a "Nordic folk ambassador" because of his academic contributions. Around the world, some people call him the spokesman of the outdated new left, while others rate him as one of the five most famous communication critics in the world.

Global communication

Globalization can be observed from two angles: modernity and post-modernity. The former is mainly reflected in armand Matra's Communication World, while the latter is reflected in Michelle? Hart and Antonio? Empire, co-authored by Negri. In the empire, the nation-state is no longer regarded as having supreme authority, and its ability to regulate the economy is getting weaker and weaker. Its authority has been replaced by a new global authority, which is the "empire". With the development of globalization, racial boundaries are gradually disappearing, and the world market is liberated from the internal and external distinctions imposed by nation-States. "This new free space has many differences. Of course, these differences do not freely play a role in international space, but are integrated into a highly differentiated and dynamic global power structure network. " In the empire, no country "can form the center of imperialism. Imperialism is over. " "National identity is replaced by the mobility, flexibility and permanent division of the masses". Although the author of this book adopts the method of political economy analysis, he has made a non-historical analysis of macro or micro subjects in the process of globalization. Developing countries and developed countries deprived of specific social, political and economic status are abstractly placed in the empire, ignoring the topographic map of the world order established around the market. Therefore, Empire analyzes the so-called new political, economic and cultural communication mode from the post-modern perspective under the background of globalization and neo-liberalism, and the end of history and ideology. French communication scientist armand? Matra opposes the non-historical analysis of this kind of communication, emphasizes the misappropriation of communication flow by the subject in a specific historical environment, and puts the logical framework and conceptual tools of world communication into Braudel and wallerstein's "economic world" thought.

In Braudel's view, the order of the economic world is caused by geographical reasons. Wallerstein's order is based on the international division of labor. Matra bases his theoretical tools on the "communicative world" derived from Braudel's "economic world", and his theoretical methods are inspired by Braudel's concept of "economic world" and wallerstein's world system theory.

Information and culture

When cheering for the "world information society", people ignore a problem: the difference between information and culture. Nicholas, former director of the MIT Media Lab? Nicholas negroponte pointed out that the basic element of the information society is not atoms, but bits. Digital network is to convert information into bits and then transmit them to users without paying attention to the meaning of these information to users. French communication scientist Matra analyzed the difference between information and culture. He believes that treating culture as information indiscriminately is a kind of "worship of the present" and "worship of information" and a mockery of culture and memory. For information, that transmission channel is the most important. Meaningful production is not on the engineer's agenda. The viewpoint of information ignores that culture is the production and uniqueness of meaning. Cultural uniqueness is "the root of identity, meaning, dignity and social innovation".

With the end of the cold war and the deepening of globalization, the word "end" appeared: the end of history, the end of ideology, the end of nation-state and so on. These words seem to indicate that mankind will enter a new democracy and harmony. The reasons for these words lie in the end of the cold war, the end of the development of human ideology and the popularization of western democracy as the final form of human management. Globalization has broken the geographical boundaries of nation-states. The information society soon came into contact with these words. The principle of "free flow of information" has become a supplement to the concept of free flow of capital, goods and resources. Imagined industrial products have entered the ranks of global service trade. One of the characteristics of communication in the digital age is the integration of information and culture, which provides the guarantee of legal discourse for treating information and culture indiscriminately. This is the strategic design of developed countries.

Matra believes that the meaning and application of the concept of "communication" can only be considered in the cultural background. He mentioned two cultural definitions when analyzing the social and cultural influence of transnational corporations in Transnational Corporations and the Third World. One is the French political scientist Sen? Maurice Duverger's definition: Culture is a set of techniques, systems, behaviors, lifestyles, habits, collective expressions, beliefs and values that express established social characteristics. The other is from Habermas, who analyzed from three sociological dimensions: language, work and power, and thought that multinational corporations were the producers of the new institutional model. In the digital age, the ability of international communication far exceeds the cultural influence exerted by multinational companies, and a large amount of cultural information flows freely in the "communication world" through digital network tools. This influence on the nation-state can not be ignored. When Foucault talked about power relations, he thought that the exercise of power was the influence on others' behavior. Should we consider the consequences of this bet when the insufficient technical infrastructure in different countries leads to unequal information exchange flow? "Globalization begins at the grassroots level", so do we need to seriously consider the maintenance of national identity and the institutionalization of daily life? Is Gramsci's theory of cultural hegemony another perspective to think about this issue?

Albert. Albert Gore, who proposed the concept of "information superhighway", wanted to show his "network" to the "human family".

-Global Information Infrastructure-World Plan, re-using the tone of prophets and ancestors since18th century. 1In March, 1994, he announced in Buenos Aires to the delegates attending the International Telecommunication Union Congress: "Our goal is to ensure that all members of our society can enjoy universal services, thus making it possible for those who wish to express their opinions freely ... The Global Information Infrastructure (GII) will not only be a symbol of democracy, but also actually support the operation of democracy by increasing citizens' participation in decision-making. It helps to develop national cooperation capacity. I see here that a new era of Athenian democracy will be formed in the forum of global information infrastructure creation. " But now 13 years have passed, and what we see is 9? 1 1 The planner and denominator of the event are using the Internet to have a discourse debate. The network has become a place for geopolitical games, and the loaded information has become a lever to build power relations. "The power struggle to reshape our civilization is not only effective in the real area of the nation-state: they are also manifested in the virtual area." Therefore, in international information dissemination, the confusion between information and culture is the product of the logic of market economy, and the information dissemination network is also the place to construct geopolitical and geo-economic power.

Collective memory

Collective memory is often associated with culture. Nora-Minc's report "Social Informatization" (1978) became a masterpiece because of its analysis of the social impact of computer technology networks. In his view, the cultural model of a society is based on its memory. Simon? Nora and Allen. Monk believes that with the development of global network, the meaning system constructed by knowledge digitalization means a geo-cultural model, which may define a unique way of thinking and feeling as a universal standard. The monopoly of information database by a single country may lead to the evolution of national identity of the country from which information is extracted. He believes that "it is a kind of cultural alienation to let American databases organize this kind of' collective memory' and be satisfied with obtaining data from it." In the context of cultural industry, "the popularization of culture is carried out through cultural industry." Cultural products, as commodities, flow without boundaries with the help of digital tools of modern communication networks under the background of globalization. This is the philosopher Bernard? Stigler called it "the globalization process of memory externalization". "The service of cultural products is ultimately to provide (production and circulation) truth ... Once individuals accept information and truth, they will" convert ". Because "one of the forces of communication is the internalization of information received by individuals, and at the same time it aggregates the roles played by modern people in different natural environments and social situations, thus embodying the socialization of communication." "Therefore, the externalization of collective memory is a two-sided process: on the one hand, it is the strong diffusion of the dominant collective memory, on the other hand, it is the alienation of the memory of the disadvantaged groups.

In the information age, culture is informatized and disseminated under the principle of free flow of information. As the root of "identity, meaning, dignity and social innovation", culture (uniqueness) is gradually marginalized. Domick Walton believes that "culture usually has two dimensions: identity associated with maintaining its own cultural heritage; In order to think about the opening of the contemporary world linked with history ... Now, the dimension of openness has reached such a level in the ideology of modernity, paying attention to the present and being indifferent to history, so that people have already foreseen the emergence of identity problems ... ". Human beings are socialized through interaction, that is, they become members of society through interaction. When the culture, which is the basis of collective memory, is constantly changed by external information, national identity becomes a bet for the opening of the information dissemination network.

In this way, in the digital network era, collective memory has evolved into an information base, and the differences between culture and information have disappeared. In reality, the unequal world communication relations have strengthened this inequality to some extent. Information output has become a way of political, economic and cultural game in the new era, and cyberspace has also become a geopolitical space. "For the social audience in underdeveloped countries, the result of communication globalization may be that the subject's own activity boundary is dominated and blurred by' others' desires', and irrational or irrational value orientations, such as national nihilism, extreme nationalism or network nationalism, are more or less generated from opposing perspectives. "